Wednesday, May 02, 2007

In which our heroine actually works in an office

I do realize that much of the world works an eight hour day (give or take) in an office much of the week, year round for years, however I am clearly not like the rest of the world. It has been over 10 years, or around a quarter of my life span since I worked a 40-hour week on a regular basis and the longest stint I did of such a schedule, continuously was five years and that was split between two employers. I am so not "a company man" kind of woman.

Another interesting tidbit about this place, besides it's role as a potential star making factory for kids, is there is an actual time clock to punch. This amuses me no end. I think I had one other job where I "punched the clock" and that was a zillion years ago in Manhattan at an upscale real estate firm. It was not one my longer stints for many reasons which we need not go into. Suffice it to say that pompous yuppies (hm, is that redundant?) are not my cup of tea.

Mondays are a slow day at Stars r Us because they do heavy recruiting on the weekends, hence the need for data entry of these babes in the woods at the start of the week. Apparently it was a slow day so around 3 o'clock I got trained in scanning photos from the files we were all madly entering. Maggie (not here real name either) thought I had picked up everything - data entry and scanning really quickly which I guess is why she asked me about three times if I was really only there on Mondays. Maybe she'll pass the word to Iris, who hired me, that I should get more hours.

At one point we were down in reception and I flashed on how if this was a television series my role would be that of the plucky and uniquely gifted temp who would quickly became a beloved employee working my way up through the ranks in no time, scouting stars right and left. From there my mind went to the idea of some simple little job being tempting. No more papers to write, no Board of Behavioral Sciences to worry about, nada. Just go to work, do my board stuff, DNE, and knit. Read anything I want! The daydreams are piling up over here.

The snag, of course, is once I am not in school the clock starts ticking on paying back student loans - a daunting prospect I tell you. I have borrowed more than double I made in my best year working full-time, which I grant you wasn't much but given my standards...well let's just say staying in school with readings and papers breathing down my neck is tied as a stress producer with the agony of facing loan repayment. Either way I figure the stress monsters keeping me awake, producing vicious dreams and keeping my belly in knots 24/7 are here to stay. In a way I would be happy to make better friends with these monsters if they kept me away from food because than at least I'd be skinny. Looking like a strung out mess with circles under my eyes the size of sewer covers, but skinny! Yeah that's the ticket. NOT!